Chelen Johnson
The Sharpless CHARcuterie Playground (SCHARP) team will be studying several targets selected from the Sharpless (1959) catalog to see if there are young stars therein.
For me, [this project] was a real partnership between scientists and educators. All questions and suggestion were taken seriously and with respect.
[My favorite part of NITARP is] Getting a chance to participate in cutting edge research. As an educator you don't always get those opportunities, since you're always focused on teaching, teaching, teaching, so it’s exciting to see the science that's happening in the present moment.
I've been in the classroom for 35 years, and almost all science education, certainly through the high school level, is fact based and has nothing to do with how science is really done. The opportunity to actually participate in research from square one, where there's a question and no one knows how to answer it, but we're going to figure it out, was just so enticing.
